Review: The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts - Kim Fu

Genre: horror, haunted-house

Published: Tin House Publishing, March 2026 My Rating: 5/5 stars

"What would Lele say? What would Lele do? She asked herself these questions all the time, her answers feeble and uncertain, never knowing if she was right. She’d made this ghost. It couldn’t tell her anything new."

The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is an incredibly effective ghost-story with themes of grief, trauma and social isolation. It drew me in with its atmosphere, but truly snuck up on me with how deeply I came to feel for the main character. I highly recommend this one if you’re in the market for an introspective, slower paced horror novel that will leave a deep impact!

The Story:

In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. Being in her late twenties and working as a therapist herself, she feels like she should be able to do this, but the loss of her mother feels as if the entire foundation on which her life was built is gone. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final directive: use her inheritance to buy a house.

The model-home in the valley – part of an abandoned development project, with a shadowy past and unclear future – seems like an opportunity for a new start. Until she moves in, and the rain begins to fall. The seemingly never-ending torrential downpour, washes away the shiny veneer, to expose a structurally unsound lemon-of-a-house underneath. Simultaneously, the rain seems to blur the lines between reality and illusion, and ghost of both the house ánd Eleanors past take up residence in her walls.

What I liked:

I will start with the elements of the book that I liked, and that met my expectations, leaving the parts that truly lifted it towards a 5-star-read for me for the end.

First things first; a haunted-house story stands or falls with atmosphere, and this book had it in spades. From the isolated valley setting, to the rain-soaked dreary imagery, to the tangible sentence-level descriptions of rooms and hallways that feel just a little “off”; Kim Fu does a phenomenal job of twisting the familiar into something askew and eerie.

Without spoiling anything; there are hauntings and horrors of both the supernatural and real-life variety present in this book. Kim Fu weaves these together into a layered narrative that leave a lot contemplate, even after finishing the book. The book is slow-paced, which helps to build an atmosphere of claustrophobia and dread that compliments the themes perfectly, and gives the characters plenty of space to develop themselves.

What I loved:

Speaking of developing characters; it was the character of Eleanor that elevated this book from “good” to “exceptional” for me. And as mentioned in the first line of this review, my love for this character came as quite the surprise to even myself.

This is a bit of a confession, but Eleanor starts off as the kind of person that I struggle to relate to most, both in books ánd real-life. She is naïve, passive and almost childlike in the way that she leans in to full dependence on other people to take care of her. It becomes clear that her mother and her had a very codependent relationship in the years before her death, and Eleanor has been coddled and protected into the role that she takes now. It’s a coping style that couldn’t be further from mine, and I often find myself irritated by people like this and their “wallowing”. So too with Eleanor. I’m almost ashamed to say: I hated her at first…

Yet, as we slowly peel back the ghostly layers of Eleanor’s past, we get glimpses of the completely different woman that she was just a few years ago, as well as the events that put her in the position she is in now. Her infantilized behaviour and codependency on her mother are reframed to become part of the horror. The horror of a woman completely disempowered by what life threw at her.

From that moment on, I became deeply sympathetic to Eleanor. I was invested in her development (which she definitely earns throughout the book) and was cheering her on every step of the way.

Part of the joy of reading to me, is crawling into the heads of characters, and The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts allowed me to do this, with a character-type I genuinely didn’t think I’d relate to.

All of that was just the cherry on the cake of an already greatly atmospheric haunted house story that would make Eleanors namesake on Hill House proud. Fans of the genre, this is one to keep your eyes peeled for!

Many thanks to Tin House publishing for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

You can find this book here on Goodreads.